The Friend Zone
by dannyboy23
Summary: Oliver has loved Lily Luna Potter for as long as he can remember but is stuck in the dreaded friend zone. Is there any way he can get out of it? Can he win Lily? Does she even feel the same way about him? One things for sure - the path to true love does not move smoothly
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Looking out on the lake each night at sunset really is my favourite thing to do, there's nowhere that's really peaceful in the whole of Hogwarts except for this place and lucky for me no one really knows I come down here every night. It's not that I'm depressed or one of those teenagers with issues that feels close to nature or some shit like that I just like coming down here to think and take thirty minutes away from my utterly insane peers

"Thinking again Benson?" came the voice of Lily Potter from behind me. I turn and smile at her, she's absolutely gorgeous and the most sort after girl in the school "You really should do less of this; your brain might not be able to keep up and explode". I smirked as Lily stepped carefully along the four small rocks before the big one I was currently sat on. It was a late September night about four weeks after we came back to Hogwarts and Lily had been down here with me each night without fail. I felt myself blushing as I watched her go from rock to rock with a hard look of concentration on her face trying her best not to fall in. She was wearing one of my Quidditch hoodies, a short denim skirt and had her glorious red hair tied back and had no shoes on; she grinned up at me as she reached the last rock

I pulled her up and she sat down next to me and rested her head on my shoulders, I was finding it very hard to breathe at this moment in time. If you hadn't already guessed I am in love with this girl completely head over heels pathetic for her; she's my dream woman after all. Beautiful, kind, feisty, funny and intelligence I couldn't ask for better in a woman than the only daughter of the bloke who saved the wizarding world

We'd been doing this every night since we got back to school, Lily and I were best friends and had been since first year though I'd never told me about my special spot until the end of last year and she'd been nagging me about letting her come down ever since. I eventually caved in and now this is kind of our special little routine, I didn't mind as it meant more time spent with the girl of my dreams. I'm sure she doesn't feel the same way about me as I feel about her. She's Lily Potter for merlin's sake, why would she be interested in little old me that way? OK, I'm not the ugliest guy in the world I'll admit and I've been told by various ex-girlfriends that I was kind, funny and cute during our relationships and nine times out of ten the relationship only failed because my love for Lily got in the way

I'm not sure how long I've been in love with Lily, we're in sixth year and I realised I fancied her in the second year but this in love thing didn't come about until half-way through last year. It's not like a creepy obsessional love where I sneak into her room every night and watch her sleep it's the kind of love where everything she says I hang off every word, I get jealous when I see her with other guys but it's not like I go around hitting them (well except Scorpious last year but the moron had it coming and Lily hates him anyway).

"What're you thinking about" I ask her as she yawns, her head still resting on my shoulder

"Flobberworms" she says almost immediately. She lifts her head off my shoulder as I give her a weird look, she grins at me and my stomach does a backflip "Just they're so creepy and ugly looking, but how they're really important for gardens and stuff"

"How very deep Miss Potter" I reply

"Well thank you Oliver" she replies back resuming her position on my shoulder, we sit in silence for a few more minutes until she yawns

"Tired?" I ask her and she nods with her eyes closed as if she was about to go to sleep "Come on then let's get back, we have got that History of Magic essay to hand in tomorrow"

Lily groans as I jump down from our rock and hold out my hand for her to take. I lift her down and nearly drop her in the lake, catching her round the hips just as she's about to fall in

"Careful Benson" she says pretending to be annoyed "If the only daughter of Harry Potter is found dead in the river they'll all think there's some kind of uprising coming"

I chuckle sarcastically and walk on in front of her for a while until I notice how far behind she's lagging. I walk back to her and she looks as if she's about to fall asleep standing up, she gives me a pleading look and I sigh

"Get on then" I say crouching down as she climbs on my back and soon enough I'm giving her a piggy back to the castle well aware that she's fallen asleep on my back. We'll most likely get in trouble for being out after hours but I didn't really care at the moment, my main focus was getting back to the Common Room and getting Lily to bed.

Mainly because she's heavier than she looks, Lily's skinny but she sure does eat a lot and you can tell when you carry her. That's another feature of Lily's that I love, I wouldn't want a girl that refuses to eat for whatever reason and there's no danger of that with Lily she eats more than I do. We reach the common room without getting caught though the Fat Lady rolls her eyes and mutters "every bloody night" to herself as we entered the now empty common room

"Lily, Lily come on wake up" I say as I put her down on the couch "I can't go up to your dorm, the stairs will change to a slide again"

Lily laughed no doubt remembering an incident a few weeks ago; she'd fallen asleep so I decided to carry her to the dorm except the stairs changed into a slide as they always did when boys tried to approach the girl's dorm. To cut a long story short I ended up in a first year girl's dorm with my trousers around my ankles as Lily and her roommates fell about laughing

"I don't want to go up a flight of stairs" she groaned

"Well where are you going to go silly" I ask smiling at her, she gives me one of her evil looks and I know what she's thinking

"No, no, no you are not sleeping in my bed" I protest "Where the hell will I sleep?"

Lily pointed to the couch and gave me her puppy dog eyes until I sighed and said "fine" she got up excitedly and ran into my dorm which was at the top of a flight of stairs, it was then I realised I'd been had. According to Lily the boy's beds were a lot comfier than the girl's ones and she'd tricked me into this eleven times since the start of term. I conjured over a blanket with my wand and climbed onto the sofa and went to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

After a deeply uncomfortable night on the sofa the last thing a guy wants is to be woken up by snotty first years poking him asking if he was dead. That happened to me this morning, seriously I'm sure we weren't that rude to older students when we were in the first year I'm not even sure I spoke to anyone in the year above until Lily introduced me to her brothers at Christmas.

"Sofa again" asked my best friend Hugo Weasley, Lily's cousin, as he came down the dorm stairs followed by Ryan Geller and Ben Thompson my other friends. Lily was behind them, shot me a cheeky grin and ran into her own dorm room "Mate, are you even listening to me" Hugo was snapping his fingers in front of my face; clearly I'd decided to not take my eyes off Lily. Despite being her cousin Hugo was the only person in the world who knew I was in love with Lily, he freaked out initially but was cool with it now though he said to make sure that James and Albus never found out

"Lily doesn't half snore" said Ryan as we made our way down to breakfast about ten minutes later "I haven't had a wink of sleep"

"How come she ended up in your bed anyway mate" asked Ben

"She was tired and didn't want to go to her own dorm" I explained as we entered the Great Hall and sat down next to Rose Weasley and Albus Potter in the year below "So I said she could sleep in my bed"

"Without you I hope" said Albus sternly clearly having heard the latter part of our conversation. I grinned and explained the situation to Albus who made sure I knew that I would never invite Lily into my bed with the intention of having sex with her nor would I ask to go into her bed. I was also reminded that I was the only non-Potter boy that Albus (and by extension the rest of the family) trusted with his little sister and should remember that I earned that trust but it could just as easily be taken away.

"The Weasley/Potter's are so overprotective" I groaned as Albus and Rose left the table to tutor Potions for first and second years "It's so irritating"

"Dude, that's my family" said Hugo outraged "And I am not overprotective of anyone"

"Last week you hexed Erik Sunderland in the first year for talking to Lucy" I exclaimed

"She's 12" said Hugo sounding as if he'd been vindicated "She shouldn't even know what a boy is let alone talk to one". I sighed as Lily and her two friends Melissa Perkins and Rebecca Summerfield sat down next to us, Lily pinched one of my pieces of toast and began eating it

"So boys" said Lily putting her arms around Ryan and me "What are we going to do this fine October Saturday; I suggest we sneak into Hogsmeade"

"What's the point" piped up Melissa "The trips start next week, can you seriously not wait one week"

Lily eventually admitted defeat when Ben said he had no money, Ryan was coming down with a cold, Rebecca had a date with a Ravenclaw boy in the library and Hugo left to go and study together leaving just Lily, Melissa and I

I didn't mind Melissa not really, she was ok at times and a laugh but she was very shrill, uptight and high maintenance and her ideas of fun weren't exactly what you'd call normal. Wizards Chess is only fun for about half an hour but then watching pieces of rock knock lumps out of each other became rather tedious

I was well aware that Lily was bored beyond belief; we had this thing about each other where we could tell what the other one was thinking without actually saying anything. Melissa on the other hand seemed to be having the time of her life as we walked down to the Herbology greenhouses to visit Nev and his weeds, I like the man don't get me wrong but a person's interest in plants should only go to a certain point and this man crosses it. Did you know there were eight different types of Mandrake? Because I didn't

"Ah Miss Perkins" said Nev as the three of us entered the sacred Herbology greenhouses "I see you brought some friends along for a change, I must admit Benson I wasn't sure you'd be one for additional Herbology lessons"

"Additional Herbology lessons" Lily and I exclaimed at the same time. Melissa turned red, good, she'd been caught in her lie the devious little told

"But you said you'd bring me here so I could steal gillyweed" said Lily angrily. Longbottom raised his eyebrows at Melissa who went even redder and muttered "I had to get them here somehow"

"Why would you think I wanted to do extra Herbology" I asked trying not to sound as angry as Lily, I didn't want to be rude and Nev already did look quite hurt "I'm sorry but even Nev knows I suck at it. I didn't even opt to take it for NEWTS and neither did Lily"

"Will you please call me Professor Longbottom" Nev replied through gritted teeth. Lily was off somewhere touching plants, that girl must have ADHD or something she seriously can't resist touching things she isn't meant to

"I just thought it could be fun" said Melissa brightly "I mean you did say you were bored, and Alice is coming to help isn't that right Professor Longbottom"

"Oh yes my daughter should be here any moment" said Longbottom "Alice has agreed to help as a kind of work experience, she needs all the training she can get if she wants to become a teacher"

Hang on, Alice is coming?

I'm staying. She's fit. I'm not in love with her but damn she's one good looking girl, who knew Nev had it in him

"What are we staying" groaned Lily as I through her over a coat and a pair of gloves, she gave me her puppy dog eyes and pouty lips but it wasn't going to wash with me today. I have chronic back ache from last night that's down to her and I'm pretty sure she's taken the five galleons I had by my bedside

"Yes Lilypad come on" I said taking her hand and walking her over to Melissa and Nev – sorry Professor Longbottom – who were placing several scary looking plants on the large table that spanned the length of the greenhouse

"But Ollie" she groaned as we began picking plant seeds out of dirt for some reason, man I'd forgotten how boring and mundane this subject was Alice had better arrive and quickly because if she doesn't my life won't be worth living, Lily is most likely going to kill me one we leave the greenhouse. Or before and she'll take Melissa and Nev with her. Either way death is inevitable if you piss Lily off and man did she look pissed off with me

"Nev, I think this thing just farted" I said holding up a miniature Cactus that had a very bad and very strong smell coming off it

"No, no, no" said Nev taking the cactus thing off me "This is a swamp Cactus; they smell like that all the time"

"That is so gross" said Lily who was holding her nose just as Alice walked in the greenhouses apologising for being late. Alice Longbottom is absolutely beautiful with long blonde hair, gorgeous deep blue eyes and a smile that lights up the room. She's head girl (much to the jealousy of Rose Weasley), top student in Ravenclaw and the first female Ravenclaw Quidditch captain for over sixty years. She's also one of the nicest people in school and the most popular. In short, Alice Longbottom is wonder girl

The rest of the lesson went like clockwork now Alice was here and soon enough the two hours were up and it was time for dinner. Alice volunteered to stay behind and clear up as Nev had a staff meeting to attend to, Lily didn't seem as pissed off as she had done an hour ago and though she'd probably never admit it she'd ended up really enjoying the session

"Coming Ollie dear" she asked me as I hesitated at the back of the green house, I looked to Alice who was struggling to lift various heavy plant pots back onto their shelves

"I'll be along in ten minutes I think I'll stay and help Alice" I replied, Lily rolled her eyes and grinned at me before leaving with Melissa. I turned back to Alice who was on her knees sorting out some of the smaller plants; I crouched down next to her

"Oh Ollie you didn't have to stay" she said with a smile on her face

"No it's fine I want to" I replied giving her a grin. We cleared away in silence for a few minutes before out of the blue Alice asked me

"So, how long have you been in love with Lily Potter?"

How did she know?

Damn it Hugo!

"Oh don't look so terrified" she said grabbing my arm and giving it an affectionate squeeze "No one's told me don't worry it's just something I picked up on"

"Why am I really obvious" I spluttered. Oh crap, what if Lily knew? What if everyone knew? What if they were all in the Great Hall laughing about how pathetic I am?

"No you're not obvious" said Alice "I'm just quite good at noticing these things, so do you think she likes you back?"

"Why would she?" I replied "She's the brilliant Lily Potter, who am I?"

"You are Ollie Benson" said Alice taking my arm making sure I sat down next to her as she perched on the end of the table

"Ollie Benson is a no one" I said "And even if I'm not, I'm certainly not good enough for Lily"

"Oh come on Ollie" she said nudging me "You're sweet, kind, funny and very, very cute. The third year Ravenclaw girls never stop talking about you"

"Thanks but it's not gonna happen" I got up and faced her "Lily just sees me as her best friend"

"Ah another comrade lost to friend zone" said Alice giving me a pat on the shoulder "We shall mourn you my brother. And don't you worry I won't tell a soul". She patted me on the back, picked up her handbag and left the greenhouse telling me to lock up and give the keys to Nev

Wise girl that Alice Longbottom, a bit weird maybe, but wise all the same. Who knew an afternoon filled with Herbology could actually turn out to be fun?


End file.
